When it comes to detecting phishing schemes, most solutions rely on training employees and employers to spot a threatening email. Reston, Va. startup Graphus is working to change that.
"You can’t just train the employees to fight against the threat," Graphus CEO and co-founder Manoj Srivastava told DC Inno in an interview. "Training is good—you need to have that so people aren’t doing foolish things—but depending on people to protect an enterprise is foolish."
That's where Graphus comes in. The plug-in for G-Suite users brings in automation to detect potential phishing schemes through what Srivastava calls the Trust Graph. Think of the Trust Graph like Google's search engine. They have what Srivastava would call a Knowledge Graph, outlining which stories are the best fit for a user's inquiry. The Trust Graph works in the same way, detecting the language and habits of the people you chat with to ensure authenticity.
"That Trust Graph forms the basis of the technology and we use that to reveal the communications that are not trusted," Srivastava said.
Automation is what differs them from their competitors, like local company PhishMe, which focuses on training employees and employers. "It’s a fantastic business because it’s a pretty big problem. But what we bring to the table is automation," Srivastava said about the competitive landscape.
In March, the startup opened its spear-phishing products to companies nationwide after testing the product with area-startups. For instance, Vienna, Va.-based Urgent.ly is currently a client.
The product is free for companies with fewer than 25 people, and they will only be alerted of a spear-phishing attack. For automated protection, the product is $1 per user per month, with an annual contract. For more features beyond protection, the product is $2 per user per month.
"The business model that we have is affordable for a small-to-mid-size company," Srivastava said.
Srivastava is no stranger to the D.C. metro area. In the past two decades, Srivastava has hopped from security company to Internet companies. He completed his Master's degree in Information Security Information at UMBC, and he found himself on the board of a few local cyber startups.
"There was something in me that attracted me to security," he said. "Working with security early in my career where the issues weren’t as well understood on the main street—that's how I started."
Now that they've launched, the company is seeing customers come in from across the country, with most customers coming from outside the D.C. metro area. They're looking at expanding to Office 365 services by the end of 2017, but for now, the primary focus is on new G-Suite users.
"My experience in security and intelligence spans 20 years in this area," Srivastava said. "One thing that I realized, which is true, is that security solutions are very complex."
Screenshot via Graphus.ai
